Reincarnation
by icecreamlova
Summary: AVALANCHE, the Lifestream, a bargain with Ansem. Everyone knows and no one discusses how Radiant Garden was, in fact, their SECOND chance at life. KH/FF Yuffie-centric.


**Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts franchise and Final Fantasy franchise are not mine. I make no profit from this.**

**A/N-1: **Zack and Rinoa are characters from Final Fantasy 7 & 8 respectively.

**A/N-2:** Yuffie, who is a character from Final Fantasy 7, is from Wutai (thus it is mentioned) who are rather famous for their ninja. She was part of AVALANCHE, a eco-terrorist group against ShinRa Electric Company, which was killing the planet by draining something called its Lifestream.

_Please note that this is VERY speculative (i.e. there is 0 evidence that this is true). But it's fun to guess!_

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_**Reincarnation**

_By icecreamlova_

- : -

"I hear ya came a thousand years after us."

"What?"

"A thousand years," Yuffie says, "after us. On Gaia."

Squall frowns, then jerks as he realizes what Yuffie's talking about. "I don't know what you're talking about."

A half-turn and he is gone.

Yuffie stares after him. "Does he KNOW how badly he lies?"

Because he did talk about it. Once, when he let his guard down, right after he was told that Rinoa had disappeared.

- : -

Yuffie sleeps and dreams of not-Yuffie flinging a shuriken at a giant monster, gun-handed men and red-caped fighters at her side. She wakes up and goes to search for one in Radiant Garden--the weapon, not the monster.

A friend exclaims over how accurate she is, as if she's done this before.

"It wasn't a dream," Yuffie says.

- : -

"Everyone deserves a second chance," Yuffie reads off Lord Ansem's stuffy old book. She turns to look at Aerith, who is always so patient. Something about Aerith makes Yuffie think that she's different, but Yuffie hasn't remembered enough to figure out why. "What about us, then? Do we get a third chance, or just fade away if Heartless catch us?"

Aerith frowns, the same way Squall did, but at least she doesn't lie.

"Yuffie," she says, "This is a different place. A different time. You're different. Don't get too caught in the past."

Aerith doesn't talk alone with Yuffie again for a month--even Flower-Girl is caught up in it. Whatever IT is.

- : -

Radiant Garden has one church. Yuffie visits it and wonders if Aerith spends any time here.

She doesn't remember much. Maybe she'll know more when she's older. Aerith and Tifa and Cloud and Squall obviously know more than her.

It's not Aerith she finds in the church.

He is pretty tall, with dark hair like brush bristles, and his eyes are very blue. A sword Yuffie got glimpses of in her dreams, but with Cloud as its bearer, is strapped across his back. There's something pensive about him.

"Hey," she says. She's young, but she's never been timid. "I don't know you."

He laughs. "I'm Zack. I'm a royal guard."

Yuffie thinks she should know the name, but she doesn't.

"I come here to remember," he says. He peers at her. "Or don't you talk about it, either, small-stuff?"

Yuffie frowns at him. "I'm a ninja. I don't--"

An image flashes through her head. Dragons. Water. War. Stealing from him. Sparring.

Zack's face from the other side of the battlefield.

"Do you know me?" she asks instead. "Before this, I mean. Wutai. Midgar. Something like that." He nods. She sits down, and orders like the princess she dreams she is, "Tell me."

- : -

Zack doesn't know what's going on, but he does remember what happened before. He tells her, and it seems he respects her.

Zack tells her of Gaia, flashes that she hasn't recalled yet. Wutai's culture. Her place in it, as Wutai's princess. The war. ShinRa. The Lifestream.

"You were part of AVALANCHE," he says. "With ShinRa Electric Company killing the planet, you were part of the group that tried to stop them. They were too."

He means Tifa, Cloud, Cid, and Aerith.

"Not you? Not Squall?"

"I was already dead," he says. "Squall hadn't been born."

It is late. He promises to tell her more tomorrow.

But tomorrow, he is not there.

- : -

Weeks pass. Zack has disappeared. There is no trace of him anywhere.

Yuffie catches Aerith at the church, once. She picks at flowers. Yuffie sees the Lifestream, something green like Zack described, but she blinks and it's gone. It was probably only in her head anyway.

"I wanted to know him again," Aerith admits when she notices Yuffie. It doesn't escape Yuffie's notice that Aerith talks to her like they're the same age. "I guess it's too late now."

Aerith turns around so she can pretend she isn't crying. Yuffie sees the shake of her shoulders anyway.

Yuffie doesn't push. She has tact when she needs it.

- : -

"Memories," Master Even's dropped notes says. It goes on for a bit, but paraphrased: "We want memories."

Yuffie goes to the church and finds a recording device. She plays it over and hears Zack's voice.

"I left life too early," he admits to the silent church. Yuffie holds her breath as she listens. "I don't know about you, but maybe that's why I still talk about it. I had too many regrets from before to just let it rest."

Her voice comes next. "I don't remember anything. Much. Maybe I'll know more."

Yuffie goes pale, and she runs out of the church, and finds Radiant Garden on fire with a Heartless presiding over it.

- : -

She leaves everything behind and watches Radiant Garden fall away from Cid's gummi ship.

"They got Zack," she tells Aerith, after pushing her fears and thoughts of Heartless away. "They wanted his memories. Is that why you never spoke?"

Aerith goes white with shock at the revelation. Her arms, which had been wrapped around Yuffie trying to comfort the younger girl, drop to her sides. The answer is no. Aerith had no idea. Tifa and Cloud had no idea either, she tells Yuffie, but they are asleep so Yuffie can't question them directly to see if that's the truth. She's not quite up to disturbing Captain Cid, either, since he's the pilot.

She turns to Leon again.

"It was part of our bargain," Leon says. He stares at the fire winking out, and the Heartless presiding over their home. "I guess the contract's over now."

"Contract with him?" Yuffie stares. "Xehanort?"

"No. With Ansem."

- : -

Yuffie falls asleep and dreams of a different life--a third life, maybe. It's not Wutai or AVALANCHE, and it's not Radiant Garden.

Smoke curls around her in long threads. In the darkness, small fires are lit. They wink and flare. She can't tell if they're close or far.

She thinks she is alone until she hears someone speak.

"I'm sorry," a voice says.

"Are you?" another asks. "Ansem, don't be ridiculous. These are test subjects. Experiments. Now, which one to apply to sleeping beauty?"

The first voice clicks his tongue. "Yuffie. It's the only one left."

Bright light shines into her face. Her mind freezes, her body freezes, like someone else is taking over. She can't move.

In the darkness she thinks she sees a smoky figure.

"What is this place?" It's her and not her speaking. She sounds much older.

The first voice answers. Yuffie, the sleeping one, realizes with a jolt that she recognizes the voice. It's Lord Ansem, though he sounds younger. "Yuffie Kisaragi, I presume?"

"You're the one that woke me up?" she asks. "I don't recognize you. You're not one of... us." Quiet, then, directed at an unconscious woman slumped where Yuffie's standing, "Is she the one?"

"She's the one I'll give you," Ansem says. "If you enter, you will live. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"What's the price? There's always a price."

"Don't talk about it. I don't think Radiant Garden will be happy to know that another planet's memories are being preserved in ours."

Memories. Memories held in the Lifestream of a planet. Ancients, a precursor to Yuffie's time on Gaia, who were so centred in the Lifestream.

Aerith was an Ancient.

- : -

Yuffie feels old, like the Old Yuffie's years and her years are added together, and she's that age. Her mind makes the links.

- : -

"It was YOU."

Aerith flinches at the venom. She turns around and tries to smile. "Yuffie, you're awake."

"You," Yuffie says. "You're the reason we're here, aren't you?" Tifa and Cloud are roused, but she ignores them. "You separated us from the Lifestream. We became memories. Somehow we landed on Radiant Garden. Is that right?"

Slowly, Aerith nods.

"Why?" Yuffie cries. "You were... you were... not that sort of person! How could you do it knowing that she was--I was--going to be a sacrifice to let Yuffie take over?"

Aerith smiles sadly. "I wanted to live."

Before Yuffie--or her, whatever her name was before she became Yuffie--can move, Aerith leans over and kisses her on the forehead. Shadows, like Heartless, roll over her, and she staggers. In the darkness a figure is standing tall. She comes closer, into view.

It's her.

No, not her.

It's Yuffie Kisaragi.

"Hey," Yuffie says.

She looks down at herself. They are identical, and she shudders.

"Our planet was dying," Yuffie tells her, though she doesn't want to hear. "The Lifestream was fading. Aerith--well, Aerith was woven into it like dragons are part of Wutai. She'd spent three thousand years part of it already. It was survival instinct, y'know? She... froze us, sort of, and sent us off Gaia. Us, Leon, Yuna, Rikku... We're the ones who made it to Radiant Garden."

"You had no right--Ansem had no right--"

"You were dying," Yuffie says. Her smile is sad, like Aerith's. "I was life. Memories, and a shot of frozen life. Lord Ansem isn't like the Heartless that took over. He wanted to let you live. He gave both of us a second chance. But I guess I became more of you than I should, if my memories are flooding over completely..."

She sees two raindrops flowing together into one inseparable droplet. Their colors mix.

"Why can I still see you?" she asks. "Why do I want to know about the past and no one else wants to answer?"

"You're young," explains Yuffie. "I'm still a little separate. And you hadn't remembered my entrance into you, yet, so I guess you thought you were a reincarnation or something. The others, who remembered, accepted it, and decided to carve out a third life not like on Gaia, not like the host's from before." Yuffie holds out a hand. "I'm sorry, Raye--that was your name before you restarted--joining kicks us back to being infants. Raye went missing that day, and an infant called Yuffie turned up."

Raye. It sounds strange on her tongue. Unfamiliar.

Raye takes a good look at Yuffie, the apologetic girl. Their minds are still fused enough that she feels that zest for life billowing like sails from Yuffie to her, and she can feel the weight of Yuffie's years and Raye's years on her shoulders. She doesn't feel nine years old.

She sighs.

It's not like they can pull apart again, become two separate people, and she'll have a lifetime to get used to it.

"Keep your memories to yourself," she says finally, though she knows it's impossible. She understands why Aerith and Tifa and Cloud and Leon, and Rinoa, before, didn't want to remember. "But I'll keep the name. Yuffie Kisaragi."

Yuffie--the old Yuffie--smiles and fades away.

- : -

Yuffie sits on a roof at Traverse Town and remembers AVALANCHE and Wutai. She respects the part of her that lived through hardships, but it's not her life anymore.

She gazes at the stars and knows this is her universe now. Not Gaia. Her past is her past, and it is gone. She misses Yuffie's--hers--they are the same now--old friends, but they are gone. It's her second chance too, not just old-Yuffie's.

So she lives.

- : -

END


End file.
